Pact
ELI5 — The Vibe Check
Pact is contract testing for APIs. The consumer (frontend) writes what it expects from the provider (API), and Pact verifies both sides honor the contract. No more 'the API changed and broke the frontend' surprises. It's a handshake agreement enforced by code.
Real Talk
Pact is a consumer-driven contract testing framework. Consumers define expected interactions (pacts) which are verified against the provider. Pacts are shared via a Pact Broker. This catches integration issues without requiring a running integrated environment, making it faster and more reliable than end-to-end tests.
When You'll Hear This
"Pact caught that the API team renamed a field that would've broken the mobile app." / "Consumer-driven contracts with Pact mean the API team knows exactly what clients depend on."
Related Terms
API Testing Patterns
API Testing Patterns are strategies for testing your APIs thoroughly: happy path, error responses, validation, auth, pagination, rate limiting.
Consumer-Driven Contracts
Consumer-Driven Contracts flip API testing upside down.
Contract Testing
Contract testing verifies that two services agree on their API contract — the request format, response shape, and status codes. It's like checking that the